General Improvements

[SoarinSora]

If you have any other ideas, comments or suggestions about how we can improve the game (excluding lunch discussion) please post here!!

[sparty]

I figured I might as well streamline one of my requests a little bit so it actually makes sense.

I had been talking about the role of mods as leaders, and coordination between them/etc.

As we all know, every mission is expected to whittle down human forces. The organizers plan the missions together, or each plan their own mission. The problem is that, on the player side of this, it leads to a very sharp learning curve because your "leaders" don't actually lead or help you. Either you find some veterans who are willing to help you learn, or you find yourself dieing fairly quickly. The mods can't say much in the way of tips, because they KNOW all the answers and it would just be cheating. The two most common replies I heard all day were "I can't tell you that" or "It isn't my mission, I don't even know what's going on."

A possible solution to this is the idea of faction leaders, the name "need-to-know mod" came up, but here we'll call them "almost-mods." I never got turned so I have no idea how good or bad zombie organization was, so I'll just speak from the human perspective.

What is an almost-mod?
Someone who is in charge of leading the humans, and who gets their intel from the full-mods, but only what they need to know. They would know what all the quests would be, but not specific locations or the "zombie side of things." Whether or not they are immortal/join the game later can be discussed later. This role could easily be filled by one or two skilled players who were still in the game, so long as they didn't die.

I wasn't involved in organizing, so I may be way off, but from what I saw it seems like there is a large void that can be filled by these "almost-mods."


Why do we need them?
Take this scenario: The humans are tasked with escorting a target. All the mods know that there is an ambush up ahead, and as usual they don't give any advice beyond "escort the target." An almost-mod could provide suggestions as to scouting, possible zombie plans, escape measures, etc. In this role they would essentially just be serving as an experienced player trying to help novices understand strategy.

Another: There is a cypher clue, and one of the teams is not from UVic. They solve the cypher, but have no idea where the hell staircases on campus are. An almost-mod, not knowing the location of the next clue, could provide honest help and still not be cheating.

Isn't that basically just giving a platform to speak to a few veterans who know the game?
You can see there's a trend here, it's basically just pointing novice players towards an experienced guide who can try to help them in any way possible. It gives players confidence that the leader does know what they're talking about because they're a mod, and provides a very visible source of help. Experienced players would probably get very little out of this sort of thing, but any first-timers and even many second-timers would no doubt appreciate advice on strategy, locations, possible zombie attack plans, tricks to watch out for, etc. It also of course draws players deeper in, having leaders they can really count on.

how do we integrate this into the plot?
The easiest way is the old "government agenda" trick. The other human mods are all from the government, they are here to get their objectives completed at the cost of your lives. The human faction leader is a soldier like you, there to keep you alive at all costs. It would take some good acting, but could be done fairly smoothly I think. Going with a "government wants something" central plot also opens up a lot of doors to unusual missions, but that deserves its own discussion.

Would almost-mods be invulnurable/out of the game?
This is definitely up for debate. The main thing is that they would be elevated to a position of authority so others would look to them for guidance. Because of their lack of enemy knowledge, there is no reason why they couldn't play.....unless they die. Obviously there is minimal incentive to be relatively uninvolved in the event organizing as well as having to give up your day, perhaps a compromise where after X hours or only X humans are left, the leaders join the game as regular soldiers. At that point you could say that everyone alive has learned as much as an almost-mod has to teach them, plus they'll now be going into battle together anyways.

So you're talking about taking a few veterans and telling players "If you want help, turn to these guys, its their job to do what they can to keep you alive!"
That's about the gist of it. make them mods so they're visible and have credibility.

I have so many problems with this idea...
There are obvious ones. It's a power grab by a guy wanting to be important, how do you evaluate who has the skill, what if a leader ends up giving terrible advice, what if there are no novices and the position becomes redundant with other mods, etc. I'm open for discussion and debate on this. I'm not 100% saying it must be done.


A complete alternative to the above that I thought of as I typed this, and actually seems much smarter in many ways
As a final note on this topic, another possibility is that, since the game is small enough that most of the veterans know each other, mods could simply pick 5-6 guys and give them a different identifier and say at the start "if you need help ask them." This version of almost-mods would be much less official (no need to change the plot), and allowed to play because there were several so unlikely all would die too quickly. They could be selected based on mod opinion, since most do know a lot of the players. Whether or not one had to stay at base at all times could be debated. They'd essentially be like lieutenants, no actual special powers, just some sort of marker and the mod's endorsement that "yes, asking them is probably a good idea if you need help, and any advice they give, while not guaranteed, is probably going to up your chances of survival." These LTs would also be ideal for leading missions. They are NOT invulnurable and thus have a major stake in keeping their team alive. Any scouting/etc missions involving mods leaving the base could be filled by them instead of a full mod, who has to awkwardly return after their team dies in an accident.
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I'll also make one additional general-game suggestion, possibly related to the almost-mod thing. I'm not sure why, but there was a lot of confusion between mods. Different capture points in the Dominion game had different rules until they radioed each other at the end to figure out wtf was going on, and some mods gave incorrect intel by accident, etc.

For an event like this, which is mostly roleplay, it's so essential for all the mods to have 100% coordination. I'm not saying I could easily do better, I'm not saying you did badly. Just that the better the mod-coordination, the better the experience. I don't know if almost-mods would help this by preventing any need for some intel to be held back between mods, or if it was just a case of unclear instruction. Either way, maybe print off a sheet for each mod to hold onto, giving the exact details of each scenario. Just stuff like "Scenario 2: Hold area outside HHQ for 15 mins uninterrupted. Reset if zombie steps inside or all humans leave. Scenario 3: 5 capture points across campus, location secret. be holding ALL five at the end of time, must have a human at each one at end." simple little things so all mods could answer the precise rules. Depending on what roles are chosen for almost-mods this would be more, or less, necessary. Actually, even with almost mods, still probably a good idea for everyone to have.

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I'd appreciate any and all feedback on this! Almost-mod v1 (Human leader), almost-mod v2 (in-game lieutenant with seal of approval) and printing of a sheet of rules for all the real mods, possibly the almost-mods.

[SoarinSora]

Almost mod V1
Okay pros and cons we have encountered with almost-mods in the past. We definitely attempted to work with them before but it definitely tends to makes things more confusing not less, because they don’t fall into either category it can get very challenging for them.

Ex: Weapons of Legend only 2 mods knew anything about the clues, solutions, locations and information about that. They created the clues, made sure their solutions worked, the whole 9 yards. The rest of the moderators? We genuinely did not know where “the red stairs” were! Those of us talking today who have been here for 2-3 years still didn’t know where they were. We were only told clues = melee weapon. It was meant to challenge the players and ensure fairness since we couldn’t actually help you guys out.

Moderators were given a set of rules for whatever part of the event they were hosting “Baby Angel” didn’t know anything about Thunder Dome other then what it was called, where it was likely to be located, the basic outline that was repeated “2 man enter 1 man leave” and who was in charge of it. Hence why it is a struggle for the moderators to answer questions, they were giving vague answers because that is all they knew. We tried to keep moderators on a need to know basis in an effort to ensure that the game is a constant challenge for everyone. The game although a role-play is still about the apocalypse and sometimes things don’t always work out perfectly, like how people got massacred in the Thunder Dome! Our jobs are to offer suggestions and ideas based on our experience playing the game
There has never EVER been a planned ambush since mods are often on a need to know basis we know there might be a large group of players in this location and they might suggest zombies to go to general areas but credit for hoards AND ambushes is purely zombie driven, we never send them out in teams or tell them to group and lie in wait, they do that of their own accord. That is another part of the fun for the moderators they are just as unaware as you are about zombies. The zombies are remarkably self sufficient in showing team co-ordination and they are given far less direction of what is going on than humans are. (as was pointed out previously in that if they find boxes they didn’t know if they could destroy them)

We did like the idea of potentially having a “governor-agenda trick” and are going to examine potential ways we can work with that idea

almost-mod v2 (in-game lieutenant)
I have honestly never met a player un-willing to help someone out in the game. We don’t need to appoint people for a position like this because they already exist in the game! These are the seasoned HvZ players that are frequently around. How do you spot them? Often times they are fully tacked out wearing tack vests (I think that’s what everyone calls them). I promise you under those mysterious masks, costumes, etc. there are some unbelievably friendly people and if you ask them for help they are probably very willing to help you out. They are not giving an moderator information they just know the general dynamic of the game. However if people would like us to identify some of them send us message and we will talk to them to make sure they would be willing to have the added pressure put on them.
Printing off a sheet of Rules
Okay so I already briefly discussed this in the a-m V1 section but we have been discussing some other ideas we thought you guys might find beneficial
1.) Having a poster board in both HHQ and ZHQ of the general rules and guidelines of the game. Like a “10 commandments” type thing to make sure all players are aware (like no climbing) .

2.) Having a map of campus visually displayed (either on poster board or some other visual media) available for all players to see so that new players have a better understanding when we say things like HHB (where ZHQ was located)

3.) Having a poster in ZHQ and HHQ of the mods. This would include a picture of what they look like (on game day) AND a name to call them by so everyone is not “hey dude” this would just give players more awareness on who is actually in charge.
Would these things be beneficial to players in making the game run smoother and more effectively for you?

communication.
The only discrepancy we were aware of during “node-juggle” (aka capture the 5 points) was at the location behind ECS (Engineering & Computer Science AKA the big gray building). I will explain what happened in this instance... At the beginning of the hour a team of humans arrived and nobody else was around. So a decision was made to suggest to them to go and help the other humans with the rest of the nodes and to check back through the hour periodically to make sure no disturbances had happened . We felt it would be unfair to make this team sit by themselves for an hour without getting to keep themselves involved in the game, and in fact no zombies even appeared for 45 minutes of that round of the game. It was less a matter of lack of communication and more a matter of making sure everyone got to enjoy the full event. We had moderators check in during “node-juggle” every 5 minutes to confirm the status of the node they were at we definitely had communication and were constantly radioing back and forth to update everyone on the status of the events occurring in their area.
If any other discrepancy occurred it was probably more of an articulation issue vs. Incorrect information given, no two people ever ask a question the same way(usually) so we may interpret what people say differently.

I hope I answered/ responded to all of your questions and if you have any other comments please post them as well!

[TheGrandKababi]

Well done SoarinSora!

That is a whack of info that I would not be able to cobble together. Snaps.

[Litheon]

Random question, but did anyone actually USE the rule "Door ways are safe areas"?

[TheGrandKababi]

The Door Zone rule is there for the purpose of people coming out of a building after using the washroom or whatever.

In the week long game variant, blasters are not allowed to be visible in academic buildings during school hours and the door zone allows for players to un-holster their blasters from bags/pockets/quantum wells to give them a chance against camping zeds. The rule was left in for convenience of people who decided they needed to go inside a building for a washroom break or a breather, but during one day game variants, it largely goes unnoticed since there is no real reason to venture indoors.

[sparty]

@sora: Wouldn't it be better for all mods to know all the rules of all scenarios so they could be helpful? This would certainly pull away from the need for almost-mods. It'd be as simple as printing off one or two pieces of paper for each mod to hold on to, just saying the rules of a challenge. They don't need to memorize it, just to have it in case someone asks. I can't see the downside.

As we both said experienced players always fill the role of almost-mod v2's without any official designation. The official-ness would just be so new players get a sense that they are trust-worthy, and to make them identifiable. The problem is, I imagine most people on this forum are qualified to be almost-mods and thus wouldn't see a need for them, so any poll you take here will be really biased. The target audience is the ones who didn't even really check the HvZ event page for tips.

Either way I've said my bit, I'm sure you guys will come up with a good solution. Overall it was still a great event!

[SoarinSora]

We will do our best with figuring out a solution that works well for both sides for the "almost-mod V2"

It's true right now its hard for us to get a real sense of anything because we only have a handful of the original 200 players currently signed in on this forum which makes it a bit harder to get estimates for but I'm currently writing down and firing off solutions almost every day to the others to see if we can work something out in a different sense.

I think one of the major flaws and downsides of having mods with all the lists is that we only truly ever have a rough outline for game day. Yes we know we would like for this to happen here and then, but you players shape the game more than we ever could. Things have to be changed and adapted at the time and unfortunately with printed out paper "rules" you might see how if things change and someone forgets to write it down, we still would have discrepancies in events.

Thanks for your in-put and suggestions we will see what we can work with and come up with in future events!!

[tommyl]

I like the idea of having designated squad leaders or captains.

For example you can have three pre-chosen people to have access to radios(on a different channel than mods) which they receive "orders" from. The orders could be such things as defend location X for Y period of time. These people could be identified by simple surveyors tape, two loops draped across the chest in a X. If they were to die they choose the nearest person to promote to acting captain or they return their gear to headquarters and someone else can be chosen.

The specific roles these people would play would be discussed more but personally I didn't like going out and searching for sidequests then coming back and asking people what was going on only to have them answer "I don't know ask a mod"

This would put the emphasis on working together a little more and giving me a choice to either stick with the leader to follow orders or go off on my own to survive.

I felt like I was pestering the mods a little when I was asking them what I should be doing and some of then didn't entirely know what was going on or didn't want to give out too much information.

I know more then one person thought the mods arranged for the thunderdome to be a massacre

--The idea that a human commander would actually give tips along with objectives, such as don't go that way because you might get trapped, make may things seem friendlier and is essentially all I'm looking for. The previously suggested idea of just follow the guys in tactsuits works too--



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Either way I'm sure the next game is going to be just as awesome as this one was(also my first!). Good work team!

[TheGrandKababi]

Right now, for those of you who are looking at what's going on in the forum, I offer a bit of a sneak peak.

What we will be doing is having our main HQ in somewhere far more tech friendly. From here, there will be a person designated as Overwatch who will be updating a field map in real time from intel brought to the base. This will be available to all players, on it there will be mission markers, player movements and other valuable information. Hints from moderators will be played out through Overwatch and what are tentatively called Advisers.

Advisers take on a similar role to what Tommy suggested. They are vets who know the game well and want to work for the human side as a leader and a fighter.